The Story of Me – My Bio

I never knew my father. My mother left me when I was seven.

So, when I say that education and athletic ability saved my life, I am not being hyperbolic. Having a loving aunt
(who became my mother) raise me as her own did not hurt.

The Pittsburgh Public School system in the 1950s hardly prepared one for success. However, my participation in a legendary sandlot football program did. I was constantly being coached -by my coaches in football and by my aunt in life. Due to these demands made of me (and the love shown to me in between the demands)), I developed a sense of self that has never left me. I learned to “love” myself.

Athletic success and positive self-esteem enabled me to gain admission to an amazing prep school, Shady Side Academy, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It was there that I learned English – I had to. Despite being the best student in my grade school, I literally had to “learn English again”. Because of this intense experience, I have never forgotten punctuation, rhetoric, sentence structure, syntax and great foundations of composition and how to process my thoughts into communication.

After flirting with a professional baseball career, I then attended Middlebury College where I received BAs while concentrating in English, Economics and Behavior, played a starring role on the varsity football team and was an active member and officer in my fraternity. It was here I learned to love writing creatively, eventually publishing two short stories. I next attended The University of Pennsylvania Wharton School where I receive an MBA. A 40- year career in business followed.

My prep school origin is significant in that despite my career going another way into business, it was my English teachers who motivated me to invest in English and Literature the same way that I had in athletics. I became
“hooked” and developed confidence in my ability to succeed in an entirely different direction.

I subsequently had a successful business career -where I was managed and managed. As an athlete I was coached – and coached. I was a student and learned and l Have been a teacher and have taught. I have been a personal trainer -training/ coaching-and a martial artist -learning and teaching. Most significantly, I have coached and taught my children. They were both highly recruited high school athletes who attended Colgate University where they each played four years of Division 1 soccer. My daughter went to attend Harvard where she a J.D., graduating cum laude. I was occasionally “allowed” to help her with her writing style, rhetoric and sentence structure). My son received an Executive MBA at Rice University while opening an investment banking business in Houston, Texas.

I have no teaching degree; however, I have been “teaching”, coaching, motivating and being a role model for my children, their friends and the countless children I have been fortunate to have contacted. I have also been a mentor and motivational speaker to Boys & Girls Clubs in Westchester and the Bronx.

While I have been an expert in business, economics and math, I love teaching and I love English and the process of expressing thoughts of paper -or word processor. My philosophy is that if one develops confidence and a strong work ethic, there is virtually no goal that cannot be attained. Demand excellence and massage any temporary “bumps” with encouragement and love.

I believe that I can motivate any student and instruct them in the skills necessary to improve their approach to learning and to achieve the scores necessary to exceed the goals we can set together.